Mark

Brings to mind this thread.

• Couple culture in general.
• Small talk.
• Stereotyping.
• Assumptions.

On 10/6/2020 at 2:28 PM, nisse said:

conflating aroness and aceness is infuriating and just plain wrong, but i think the idea is the sharing an experience of not having an attraction many people deem inherently human. i wish alloaces wouldn't do this thing, because i genuinely believe there's sense in aspec as a community of aros, aces, and all the other folks in-between. the lack of an attraction is what we have in common, like.

Whilst such commonalities exist overstating them can lead to False Equivalence.

Both allo aces and allo aros might both be seen as "immature" there is a large difference between "innocent" and "predatory.
A way this may show up in "aspec" spaces is the idea of needing to "protect" aces from unwanted sexual content whilst aros are expected to just put up with romantic content.

19 hours ago, nonmerci said:

I think the problem is : a lot of aces want to point out that asexual doesn't mean aromantic, but they don't necessary realize that aromantic doesn't mean asexual. There is a flawed in that logic and it leads to them not realizing that you can be aromantic but not asexual.

Whilst promoting that asexual does not imply aromantic is a major part of AVEN there isn't really anywhere doing the same with aromantic does not imply asexual. 

On 10/5/2020 at 8:55 AM, Rolo said:

I will never understand why so many people seem to put aromantic and asexual in the same box, it makes absolutely no sense.

I suspect it's a part of the way in which omantic and sexual are often packaged and conflated.

On 10/5/2020 at 8:55 AM, Rolo said:

The existence of the term "aspec" which includes both aromantic and asexual identities is confusing.

If anything the concept of "aspec" is part of the problem here.

On 9/24/2020 at 5:17 PM, Holmbo said:

When I was younger I'd use to really enjoy making out. I probably still would, haven't got much opportunity nowadays. But I would get bored if I did it for too long with the same guy. My ideal would just be to dance with someone and make out a bit and then we'd go our separate ways.

Something like that might work for me. Alternatively having regular partners.
I like kissing, along with many other romantic coded things, whilst finding both romance and (any sort of) monogamy quite repulsive.

On 9/23/2020 at 7:33 PM, nonmerci said:

There are asexual people who enjoy the sexual activity, so this is possible.

Asexual sex workers exist.
Libido, sexual interest and sexual attraction are different things.
It's perfectly possible that alloromantic aces may have sex only because of it being romantic coded and thus "part of the package".

Just as aros can enjoy and/or wish to do romantic (coded) activities whilst being uninterested in or even, extremely, repulsed by romantic relationships there can be aces with similar attitudes towards sexual activities.

16 hours ago, Neon Green Packing Peanut said:

I told my mom about this because she had been helping me choose a topic, and her response was...less than great. She then proceeded to state that it is in human nature to "pair up."

This is a classical example of the appeal to nature logical fallacy. A rather questionable one since the vast majority of mammals don't "pair down" in the first place.
 

16 hours ago, Neon Green Packing Peanut said:

I told her that that completely ignores a lot of people (specifically I mentioned polyamorous relationships and she interrupted me before I finished with anything else). She responded that "there will always be aberrations" (I had to look up that word, and it does not have any definition that could really be excusable for use in that context).

There's this recently released study. Which shows it's only a minority (14%) of single people who conform to the amantonormative stereotype of single mindedly seeking to be coupled. Also notable that 10% are exclusively interested in casual dating.

On 9/13/2020 at 10:40 AM, Holmbo said:

I'm not sure what to post though. All the stuff I find interesting is things you need to have a basic understanding of aromanticism to understand.

Professor Brake is your friend.

3 hours ago, Oatpunk said:

A funny thing (Read: actually really fucking annoying) is that since we have all these negatives stereotypes, there are also a lot of people trying to combat them by instead pushing the idea that aros are super soft and fluffy and warm and sentimental and touchy and, most importantly, normal.
"Sure, aros may not want a romantic relationship, but we still have queerplatonic partners. It's pretty much the same thing! And sure, aros may not fall in love, but love is still the very core of our existence with our love for cats or art or nature! Just like a normal person!"

Which leads to people questioning if the are aro (enough) if they don't want a Queer Platonic Relationship or Platonic Life Partner. (Similarly for aros who don't do squishes.)

1 hour ago, nonmerci said:

Oh yes... Like the "but we still fall in love" from allo aces.

It potentially works for allo aces. Since romantic relationships look very similar regardless of if they are sexual or not.
 

1 hour ago, nonmerci said:

I think we should find a way to educate about these things, without marginalizing other people. Because yeah, some aros want QPR, but some aros are also aplatonic and as valid and human as the others.

There are also aros who want relationships which are neither romantic nor QPRs.
 

On 8/15/2020 at 2:13 AM, Magni said:

It's kinda common in english for us to use latin roots for words? And I think using amato- works better than romance anyways because I think amatonormativity is thus able to more broadly include things in a way that isn't limited to romance.

There are non-romantic relationships, such as "Platonic Life Partners", which can can be similar to romantic relationships in terms of structure, dynamics, hierarchy, etc.

On 8/16/2020 at 9:35 AM, nonmerci said:

That's why allo ace also use it I think.

Not sure that this applies. Since non-sexual romantic relationships are little different from sexual romantic relationships.
Indeed Professor Brake's definition makes no direct mention of such relationships being sexual.

On 8/13/2020 at 1:35 PM, nonmerci said:

Also, for reading some aro allo experiences, they seem far from that cliché. On the contrary, a lot of them seem not interested in one-night-stands, I even see some of them said they were still virgins because they want committed relationships, and it-s hard to find a sexual committed relationship that isn't romantic.

Very often alloromantics conflate "committed", "meaningful" and so on with "romantic." 

On 7/31/2020 at 1:07 AM, Vertigo said:

1. i mostly just want more aro representation in general. i don't think i've ever seen an explicitly aro character in a big movie or anything. also, i want some alloaros who aren't treated like they're shallow or manipulative or abusive or slutty. 

Maybe have allo(romantic) characters who are portrayed as shallow, manipulative, abusive or creepy towards an aro lead.

On 6/27/2020 at 2:14 PM, DeltaV said:

To name only the most off-putting thing about romantic love: it's usually gendered (the attraction is restricted to people of the "right gender") and then ON TOP OF THIS it is experienced and conceptualized as the most wonderful and loftiest feeling of all to the point of giving it a spiritual dimension.

What matters to me is that so many activities are romantic coded.

 

On 8/10/2020 at 5:01 AM, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

I don't want to be allo. I want to live in a society where people aren't made to feel like they need to be allo.

A great way to put it.

7 hours ago, Rolo said:

Those guys aren't necessarily aromantic, just in a stage in their lives where they want sex but not romance. "Too busy having fun to have a relationship" =/= aromantic. "Not ready for commitment yet" =/= aromantic.

They might be "between relationships".
There are also allos for whom promiscuity  is their method to "find the one(TM)".

1 hour ago, treepod said:

I think she was expressing the fact that not all representation is good representation. A male character who isn’t ready for commitment is seen as immature until a particular woman comes along and ties him down. Writers could be basing that trope off of real life people who *might* actually be aro, but they aren’t writing the character with that in mind. So it’s not representation at all, really.

It's a fictional cliché, maybe one which only makes sense in an amantonormative culture.
Leaving aside the (cis) hetero stereotypes of this both of the characters involved have to be allo.
Even allos tend to see romantic behaviour from people they are not romantically attracted to as creepy.

On 8/9/2020 at 2:45 PM, nisse said:

i've a feeling, too, that it is in a way easier for aces to figure out if we're aro as well or not. hence, i think, the over-representation of aroaces within aro communities @Mark mentions. i wouldn't be surprised if it's substantially harder to nail your aroness when you're allo-sexual, and maybe even feel even more "broken"

There is also self perpetuation involved here.

On 8/9/2020 at 2:45 PM, nisse said:

than us aroaces. just because i think when you've figured out aceness, you've kind of passed that hurdle - not to say we don't have that internal struggle as well, i know i had a MUCH harder time accepting my aroness than my aceness, which is partly why i identify so much more with that part of me now, it took so much energy from me. but i hope my thought process here makes sense?

Something is unusual about the ace community is recognition of variorientation. Whilst in straight, LGBTQ+ and even many aro (and aspec)  communities periorientation is assumed as a default. With it even being possible to find LGBTQ+ and aspec communities which variorientation is somehow an "ace thing".  (It's also commonly the case with kink, polyamory, relationship anarchy, etc communities are "perinormative.) 

On 8/9/2020 at 2:45 PM, nisse said:

i don't want to speak over aro-allos here, and no experience is uniform, but i wouldn't be surprised if this was the case for many.

It's very hard to find information about aro-allos even when you know the right terms to look for. Even then it's still easier to turn up aro-ace and (even) allo-ace writings.

On 8/8/2020 at 6:13 PM, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

The aro community tends to focus a lot on compartmentalizing every feeling towards another person as some distinct, specific Type of attraction, but truth be told, that's not really how relationships work, nor is it a necessary thing. It can be a useful tool for discussion and expression, sure, but that doesn't mean you should panic if something you're feeling doesn't fit the five words people have told you you're allowed to use for your emotions.

Even assuming five types of attraction that still gives, at least. thirty one possibilities.

On 8/4/2020 at 8:08 PM, Violet Stars said:

I think it's because what everyone is discussing here—romance is a far more universal part of life than sex. Sex is seen as NSFW, something to discuss behind closed doors. Romance is not, it's expressed openly and publicly. Therefore it's a much bigger aspect of everyday life. 

Discussing romance can even be an expectation. In contexts such as celebrity gossip or "shipping" fictional characters.

20 hours ago, treepod said:

I would find myself getting uncomfortable in a romantic situation, and think, “oh it’s because I’m ace,” even though there was nothing sexual happening so that didn’t really make sense. But I didn’t want to think about my lack of romantic attraction because that was a scary idea, that I might have to chart the course of my life with different kinds or relationships.

It's very much a normative to conflate sexual and romantic. With aro aces being just as likely to do this as other perioriented people. A part of this is that even with issues such as "marriage equality" the language used tends to be "sexual orientation".

The experiences of aro aces are likely to differ, substantially,  from those of either allo aces or aro allos.
That we tend to have "ace communities" which tend to favour allo aces and "aro communities" which very much favour aro aces is another possible reason for greater asexual visibility and awareness.

On 8/4/2020 at 5:18 AM, aro_elise said:

what i was going to say.  like, someone who identifies as 'bisexual' (and nothing else) is most likely also biromantic,

Periorientation both describes the majority of people as well as being the default assumption.
 

On 8/4/2020 at 5:18 AM, aro_elise said:

but the former term is meant to encompass the whole attraction thing.  we generally don't see specific reference to romantic orientation unless it differs from sexual,

You can even find "-sexual" used where "-romantic" could be a better description as well as being used to effectively mean "-romosexual".
 

On 8/4/2020 at 5:18 AM, aro_elise said:

for example i believe the most common combination is bisexual heteroromantic--i have encountered a few people who have identified themselves as such.  that being said, outside of the a-spec community, not a ton of people are aware of split attraction,

It's possible that someone who was "overlapping varioriented" may not even realise they had differing sexual and romantic orientations. It also must happen that peri-allos experience split attraction...
 

14 hours ago, Violet Stars said:

This infantilization is not exclusive to aces. Regardless of whether someone identifies as aro or not, society treats anyone who isn't looking for romance as having something wrong with them. Sex is an important part of our culture, yes, but romance even more so. And being aro has taught me that whenever you try to form a definition of humanity, you're going to leave somebody out. 

The effects of non-compliance with amantonormativity differ between allo aces, aro allos, aro aces and allo allos who choose to remain single. Infantilisation (along with pathologisation, including dehumanisation) is common way to avoid questioning social normativities. 

9 hours ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

When I mentioned infantilization of asexuals, what I meant was a little different from what aromantics get. I was talking more about the "Ohhhh you're such a naive innocent baby uwu" kind of infantilization. Yes, aros are often treated as if it's a phase we'll someday grow out of- But nobody's ever treated me like I'm innocent and naive for not dating. I hope that makes sense?

There might also be a difference between "you'll grow out of it..." aimed at allo aces to "you need to grown out of it" aimed at aro allos.
A likely related issue is that Infantilisation often comes with desexualisation included. Which may well be a non-issue to asexuals whilst being a huge one to allosexuals.

On 8/4/2020 at 3:17 AM, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

Agreed about identity politics and "humanity" playing a lot into it. Romance is everywhere in a way that sex isn't.

Some of these ways include "being safe for work", acceptable to any age along with a general lack of concern in respect of appropriateness or consent in terms of romance.
There's also ways in which romance is more "public" than sex such as getting "in a relationship", engaged or married being announced and celebrated.
 

On 8/4/2020 at 3:17 AM, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

One of the nastiest ways asexuals are often treated is infantilization, where they're compared to children because they- like children, supposedly- aren't interested in sex. But kids are still people, right? After all, even kids fall in love. Everyone knows tales of puppy love, of the childhood friends who have been together for as long as they can remember... But who doesn't want romance? Well... In the eyes of society, no one, not even kids. Which isn't to say that the infantilization of asexuals isn't mega fucked up, but the point is, alloromantic aces hit closer to the target for "considered emotionally human" than aros do.

There are situations, such as religion,  where non-sexual romantic relationships amongst adults can be considered acceptable.
Which is not the case with non-romantic sexual relationships. 
Thus the situation of aros being dehumanised can be more extreme for allosexual aros, (Assuming aro aces don't get lumped with other aces and infantised.)

On 8/4/2020 at 3:17 AM, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

It also largely has to do with the fact that the queer community at large is used to being able to just tack "-sexual" onto any word and there you've got your orientation. God forbid people acknowledge that sex without romance is a thing, right? Or that attraction is nuanced, and sex and romance aren't a package deal?

It can be the case that queer communities are more interested in questioning heteronormativity than amantonormativity. Similarly kink and non-monogamous communities can question sexual norms whilst endorsing romantic norms.
The effect of this "package deal" is to assume that all aces are also aro and that all aros are also ace., IME the ace community is better at challenging and debunking the former than the aro community is with the latter.
I've even a fair few "relationship anarchists" conflate sex and romance.

3 hours ago, GhostyPeppers said:

Huh, Ive heard of QPRs, but I never considered non-platonic friendships to be a thing. I just assumed friendships were platonic by default?

Having assumed default for a noun can make it important to use adjective (including prefixing "non-" to the assumed one) in order to avoid that assumption being made.,
It's also the case with "relationship" where "romantic" can be an assumed adjective.

I see platonic friendship as being a subset, rather than entirety, of friendship.
I'm very open to doing romantically coed things with friends or having non-platonic friendships.
I don't see romantic relationships as more than. (If I had to rank rank them as less then.)

On 7/11/2020 at 12:39 PM, Oatpunk said:

I'm currently playing a bard in my dnd campaign and he's busy with, you know, trying to save the world, so there's not a single thought in my mind to ever flirt with anyone. But then I was told that it's common knowledge the bard is "supposed to" seduce everyone and I was like "ooohhh.....yeah, I don't want to do that".

Whilst this is something of a Bard stereotype it's not, at least IME, that common. In settings such as Barovia it's unliklely to be of much use at all.
D&D does not have a specific seduction mechanic. Most common would be to use Persuasion, sometimes Performance. Other Charisma based characters such as Paladin, Sorcerer or Warlock can also easily have a high Persuasion modifier. Persuasion can also be used to rebuff another character's interest. Similarly for Intimidation, which is also Charisma based.
Something I find more obviously indirectly arophobic in D&D is the Marriage option.
 

On 7/11/2020 at 12:39 PM, Oatpunk said:

Another Aromantic Moment(tm) was when my character ended up under a spell so that everyone was super attracted to him and I was so uncomfortable. I knew that they were just roleplaying attraction to a character that's not even me but god did I want it to end.

Spells which, directly, change the behaviour of other player characters can easily result in Player Vs Player (PVP) situations. A possible counter to this would the Calm Emotions spell.

On 7/14/2020 at 7:25 PM, starstuff said:

Yesssss.   I guess I just assume that everyone in my RPG group knows that all my DnD characters are aroace because I am and my friends know that.  But then my best friend who has just started DMing a new game was like "Oh your character WILL be flirted with at some point, FYI" and I kind of tried to hint that I didn't want that, but she was like "Ok, but that's just how the world is."

One option is for your character to treat that as an attack.
Though DMs should respect players' limits.

On 7/13/2020 at 7:51 PM, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

I would like to see an allo aro character who's romance repulsed. One thing that both aroaces and allo-allos don't get is that sex is so heavily tied to romance that if you're not willing to at least perform romance for someone else's benefit, you're going to have a really hard time with any sexual relationships. 

IME perioriented people tend to conflate romance and sex. Often without being aware of it.
There can also be conflation between romance and interest in other romantic coded activities.
In theory allo-aces get this. Though practice not so much.
Also worth noting that someone's feelings towards performative romance can differ from how they view romance in fiction or popular culture.

On 7/13/2020 at 7:51 PM, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

How do you even find sexual relationships without first dating someone romantically,

Often "relationship" and "romantic relationship" are seen as synonyms. Thus there's little cultural context in terms of what a non romantic relationship (sexual or not) might look like.

On 7/13/2020 at 7:51 PM, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

if you're not someone who's interested in the usual things like nightclubs or dating apps? Or, let's say you are open to those things.

These don't work for everyone.

On 7/13/2020 at 7:51 PM, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

How do you sort out the people who are willing to have a no-strings-attached sexual relationship from the people who expect it to develop into something """more"""?

I'm not sure any relationship is "no-strings-attached" more "no-romantic-strings-attached". Even for a non romance repulsed aro that "more" could equate to "less".

On 7/13/2020 at 7:51 PM, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

What do you do when your partner """catches feelings""" and it's seen as your responsibility and your fault, and you're expected to reciprocate out of obligation? What do you do when they spread rumors about you being a bitch for refusing to date them, even when you both agreed at the start of your relationship that it was going to be purely sexual?

This is where romantic privilege comes into play. Part of this is likely to be that whoever ended the relationship it's likely to be seen as the aro's fault.

On 7/13/2020 at 7:51 PM, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

So many people think being allo aro is as simple as "Well you just have casual sex".

This assumes that
a) all aros want casual sex.
b) all aros can easily find people who they find attractive and are interested in casual sex with them.

On 7/13/2020 at 7:51 PM, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

It's not, especially if you're romance repulsed. And sometimes I see people treat us as like, Alloromantic Lite-

Which can also be expressed as "aros are satisfied with (platonic) friends".

On 7/13/2020 at 7:51 PM, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

I It's not, especially if you're romance repulsed. And sometimes I see people treat us as like, Alloromantic Lite- Basically the "aro" part ends at "well they don't have a long-term partner", without thinking about how our lack of romantic attraction affects our lives. 

There's a lot of social interaction which is romantic coded.

On 7/13/2020 at 7:51 PM, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

I'm sure you understand how much it hurts to live in a romantic society as an aromantic, right? That happens to a lot of us, too. Sure, some aros might be romance-favorable,

Someone being a romance-favourable aro does not mean that they know how to role play being an allo.

On 7/13/2020 at 8:04 PM, nisse said:

thank you for such an in-depth answer! this is extremely helpful, in part because i gotta be honest, i've wondered about those questions too - and i've caught myself many times having a hard time separating sex from romance, despite finding it not at all difficult separating romance from sex (in the case of aces who have romantic relationships).

It's not that hard to find existing examples of non-sexual romantic relationships. Even involving allo allos
Whilst it's hard to find examples of non-romantic sexual relationships.

20 hours ago, DeltaV said:

Yes. It only has a standard aro-community meaning, which doesn't conform to the general use

I'm not sure it's that much of a standard. There's also the issue that a lot of aro jargon originates from the ace community.and thus tends to assume a lack of sexual attraction. 

20 hours ago, DeltaV said:

The general use tends more in the direction of "non-physical" and comes from a distortion of Plato's Symposium and Phaedrus (he does not exclude sexuality absolutely, especially not in Phaedrus).

This definition appears to be from the Renaissance

20 hours ago, DeltaV said:

What word should we use then?

The Greek and Latin root words for "friend" are occupied and overused: Amic* and phil*. Perhaps we go with Hebrew as the third classical language (well, Georg Cantor did that for set theory ℵ !!).

Friend is chaver in Hebrew... reminds me too much of "chav"!

Conflation with friendship also appears to be misunderstanding of Plato.
It also makes a nonsense of the term "platonic friend".